"I didn’t experience what I expected. I didn’t experience the pain that I had felt all day, throughout the week, or the past 3 years. I felt safe. I think abandonment is what I continue to be triggered most by from my experience and Jill was always right there and my audience quietly not far away. No expectations or pressures. Just dance. Just a draft. Just movement to find myself again."
Choreographer & Performer: Quinn Akeby Gagos
Performer & Collaborator: Jill Canning
Music: "ZURE" by Ryuichi Sakamoto; "Until Infinity (Part II)" performed by Stars Over Foy and Vienna Sky, written by Jessy Winters and Kelly Frei
Studio Performance
Performed on December 6, 2019
Location: Building J, The George Washington University
Site Performances
Performed on October 28, 2019
Location: University Yard, The George Washington University
Performed on December 7, 2019
Locations: Lincoln Monument, Fountain at Smithsonian, National Mall with view of Capitol Building
“Entangled: For Better and Worse” explores how it feels to live with trauma once the charge has dissipated. While initially it was based around emotions of indifference and fleeting intimacy, through my own healing it became about the support that the memory of trauma can provide. Everything that happens in the world is a transaction of energy. That night of my trauma, malicious and painful energy was sent into the world, and as alone as I felt, the moment felt all the same things I did. The memory is the only thing that exists that understands me and my trials and tribulations as well as I do. What I once saw as a scar left by my assailant to mock and haunt me suddenly became my greatest ally and friend—another victim. The piece then shifted into learning how to navigate this intimacy with something that one so naturally wants to keep boundaries from. The rope came to symbolize the trauma itself while the dancers share its weight and burden, and, at times, lack thereof.
Script
Beginning
Walk through space. At times be sharing the rope, but allow for disconnect. At least one dancer should be controlling the rope at all times. Take turns with who is leading the rope.
Middle
Part I
Set choreography. The rope should be the main point of initiation for contact and connection between dancers.
Part II
Improvisation. No specific script beyond keeping previous movement in mind and staying aware of the rope and your partner.
Ending
Same as beginning until at one point the dancers and rope find their way in connection with eachother to the ground.
